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The Confession is yet another ‘legal thriller’ from John Grisham. John Grisham has written legal thrillers of various kinds but recently in last few years his books have taken a certain theme of promoting certain causes which he himself is keen follower in real life. One of the causes he advocates is abolishing death penalty and in this book presents a fictional case which justifies the cause.

The book has a very good premise of an innocent black man Donte Drumm all of 19, caught for a crime he did not commit, tried in courts, fake evidences presented, erroneous testimonies and he is sent on the death row to be executed by the state of Texas. Just a few days before his execution the real killer Travis Boyette confesses his crime to a pastor in the church in Kansas. The book describes the 4 days in which the pastor, the real killer and the defense attorney Robbie Flak try their last minute effort to save the innocent man caught for the murder he didn’t commit. There is a race to file petitions and appeals and gather evidence including the dead body, the story clearly asks its readers to think about the morality of the capital punishment.

The book describes the events in quite details and sometimes provides information more than that is needed as well. The author establishes a solid back story for most of the characters and goes in details of the American judiciary system and the racial divide in the American southern states. As like most Grisham novels the lead characters are almost super heroic and does all kinds of things expected from him but then its a minor fault.

The book at times becomes too much informative and doesn’t move at a rapid pace. The book’ plot is quite linear and with a very few twists and turns you already know what is about to happen at most times. The author highlights the racial divide in the society a bit too much as well. But no one knows the southern states more than Grisham and the detailing of judiciary and police system provided by the author is unmatched. Morality of Death Penalty is the question in reader’s mind and is answered quite well by the end of the book.

I would recommend this only to die-hard John Grisham fans. Quite slow at times and you can easily skip some pages and do not miss much. It is certainly not as good as some of his best.